The memo commission Thursday repeatedly enquired about the relevance of the questions which Husain Haqqani’s lawyer Zahid Bukhari had put to the star witness in the memo scandal as the latter conducted a ‘test of Mansoor Ijaz’s knowledge’ to prove him ‘an agent of the intelligence agencies’.
Bukhari continued putting ‘irrelevant’ question to Mansoor Ijaz that included a question about his father’s occupation, time when he left Pakistan permanently, his connections with intelligence agencies of different countries, did he arrange a meeting between RAW chief and a Kashmiri leader, is he facing financial problems, how much money he had got from the same and in what capacity he had done all that, saying the commission had no power to decided the relevancy of the questions.
Since Ijaz had admitted that he had connections with around 24 intelligence agencies of different countries, Bukhari asked him to name the agencies upon which chairman of the memo commission Justice Qazi Faez Isa observed, “It this a test of his (Ijaz) knowledge?”.
“If you want to be dramatic it’s your choice. But what is the relevance of the questions in the enquiry before hand?” he asked Bukhari on a number of occasions. After the proceedings of more than three hours, Justice Isa observed that the commission was unable to understand the scope of the questions. The ‘irrelevant’ questions continuously posed by Haqqani’s counsel compelled the chairman of the commission to say, “It is not a popularity show… we are not running democracy here”. Advocate Naseer Ahmad Bhutta observed “It is mockery of proceedings”.
Tempers rose high as Bukhari throwing the books on the table said “If I am not allowed, I will go back”. As Naseer Bhutta tried to interrupt, the chairman of the commission admonished him by saying “We cannot allow counsels to interrupt the proceedings without permission of the commission”.
As Bukhari continued to object the prerogative of the commission on ascertaining the relevance of the questions, Justice Isa addressed Bukhari: “With your permission can we speak sir”. Ijaz’s replies to majority of the questions was also ‘simply ridiculous’.
On at least three occasions, Bukhari put a question to Ijaz but could not digest the reply.
At one point, when Bukhari objected to the contents of an article written by Mansoor Ijaz and published in Financial Times on May 3, 2011 in which the latter had stated: “Pakistan has almost certainly acted as a knowing babysitter, watching over the terror master so he (OBL) would do no further harm –as long as the babysitting fees were sufficient and recurring,” Ijaz said Haqqani had agreed to the contents of the said article, adding he had already submitted a Blackberry shot to the commission which proved the same. However, Bukhari termed it ‘an irrelevant reply’.
Again as Bukhari insisted that Ijaz reveal the nature of his connections with intelligence agencies of different countries, Ijaz said, “Haqqani, on at least three to four occasions during telephonic conversations, had told me that he (Haqqani) knew everything in my CIA file”. He added “I therefore request the learned counsel to direct the question to Mr Haqqani”, who was sitting next to his counsel. Justice Isa observed, “If you put irrelevant questions, the reply would be also irrelevant”. Justice Isa told Bukhari that if he wanted to continue with the ‘irrelevant’ questions, Akram Shaikh, the counsel of Ijaz would also be given the same latitude to put questions to his client to which Bukhari agreed. Akram Shaikh observed that the questions were meant to jeopardise the proceedings.
Mansoor Ijaz claims links with 24 secret agencies
